I recently overheard a conversation between my mother and a relative of us. The relative was talking about a girl ( a s/w engg. working for Satyam....in the US). She, according to her was not getting married because her parents are not ready to cough up their life's savings in order to get a "good" guy for her. In her words...." After all these days you don't get "suitable" boys for anything less that 2 million bucks" . It was not only a fact she was stating. She said this with unquestionable conviction and a hint of glimmer in her eyes (perhaps reinforcing her belief that the MRP she has set for her just-in-job son is not that wrong...."not" inclusive of all taxes..of course).Sample this: a girl who is working in a top notch (well...not so after the corporate fiasco) software company...tht too in the US needs to cough up 2 million bucks to find a suitable match.
Compare this with a guy in similar condition....? His family must have gone gaga over him, telling all their relatives how is it like working in the US...and how much is he being paid and blah blah..... His relatives (even distant ones) would show immense proud in his achievements and how as a kid he was so close to them. Marriage proposals would have flown in.....and finally he would have got a "combo pack"....a beautiful bride + money(enough to feed him for 5 years flat even if he leaves his "high flying" job) and gifts (enough to ensure he doesn't have to spend a penny for setting up his "own" home.... (personally I don't know for what... these suckers earn))
I am not out here to give a long speech against dowry system.....that many people give(even those who take it for their son's marriage). I just want to portray what the real situation has become due to this system....for people who consider it quite pragmatic to give a "daughter's" share in her marriage...moreover I am not very sure what percentage of the groom's MRP actually goes to the bride's own kitty.....
When I was studying in nagpur i remember coming across a news article..... It reported that one girl in bhandara district committed suicide so that her parents don't have to carry the burden of saving money for her marriage, and her brother(who was about to drop out) can continue with his education...Female infanticide and foeticide have become rampant.....disturbingly more in so called "developed" states. After all a parent doesn't kill their new born baby..just for fun or sadistic pleasure...do they? Corruption has penetrated our society .....one prime reason of which is the pressure to amass wealth....so that people can marry their daughter off in harmony with their stature.
Solution: Anti dowry Act?.....no....that we made quite a few decades back....Pre Natal Diagnostic Testing Act....no? .....we have already made that 15 years back with no visible improvement in female foeticide.
The only solution is that the young generation takes charge and say no to this age old custom which has created enough of nuisance and nonsense in our society. Consider a groom who takes a high moral stand and doesn't agree to be sold off.....there's no way his parents can make him agree to their demands. This is not only about morals but also about self esteem which forbids us to be sold off in a market as vegetables are. After all when it comes to career choice and other important things in life we are so assertive and persuasive. I don't know why we become so docile when it comes to dowry. After all many of us convince our parents for a love marriage, for a career abroad, for a flat in Bandra instead of a mansion in our ancestral homes...... isn't it...then why not this?
Perhaps, in this ever increasing materialistic world everything comes with a price tag.....even love, relationship and morality....!!!
3 comments:
nice job eavesdropping!
i think what becomes very clear from these two examples is that gender discrimination or rather misogyny is not a class specific phenomenon. of course parents dont kill their babies for fun or sadistic pleasure but they dont always do this for economic reasons either. even those residing in posh south delhi blocks practice the unique indian ritual of "femicide of foetuses".This is largely due to the way we conceive gender as a natural difference which has a hierarchy inherent in it.So can we be different and equal? or the right question to be asked would be are we really so different?
of course guys taking such stands would be welcome but what is also important is that the way women see themselves is changed.More often than not these mechanisms of hegemony have become so commonsensical that no visible agent of patriarchy is even needed to see that women do not step outside their "lakshmanrekha".society has trained women to draw such numerous rekhas for themselves it is these rekhas in the mind which seem like "truth lines" due to accumulative practice over years that we need to erase.
for eg. in modernity women are told they can wear what they want but than have a toned body- "an ideal" that has been set for them. so what we think is freedom itself becomes repression in new ways.
also it is the elderly women in the family who become implementers of this system- patriarchy by giving these women some amount of power over the younger lot co-opts them to perpetuate the system of coercion.
thus until women are in no mood to get rid of their chains..the redemption will continue!
"" If u want change 1st change urself..."" As I have understand in my life till now...what ever thing happening with u or around u for all u and only u r responsible for that....So why not we should startchange from ourself...One day golden sign of Sun sure will come in our society.
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